


Understanding

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 21:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: How do Watson and Doyle meet? Holmes’ pov of The Making of Apologies
Kudos: 4





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Makings of Apologies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28801368) by [trustingHim17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17). 



> For J3rs3yG1rl, who requested it

“Mr. Holmes. I did not count you for a writer.”

The door clicked shut behind him, and Holmes resisted the urge to scowl at his old acquaintance.

“I have very little use for such a blatant waste of time, Doyle,” he replied, “as I know you remember. How many times did you try to drag me away from the lab to work on a paper?”

“Not enough, apparently.” Doctor Doyle set aside the sheaf of papers he had been reading. “What can I do for you? I hardly expected _you_ to be my morning appointment.”

Holmes did not bother to point out that the secretary had taken his name, and Watson’s manuscript landed on the desk with a faint _thump_. For all that he was a practicing doctor, Doyle could be so easily distracted that he had likely moved to something else just after noting the appointment.

“Would you or another editor you know have any interest in this?”

Doyle looked at him questioningly but took the manuscript without a word, slowly skimming the pages to get an idea of their content. He paused, then read more closely.

“Did _you_ write this, Mr. Holmes? This is marvelous!”

Holmes resisted the urge to smirk. Watson was the author; of course it was well written, but he could hardly have such a comment getting back to his friend.

“My fellow-lodger,” he answered, “Doctor John Watson. He has been trying to find an editor, and I told him I would bring it to you.” Well, somewhat. Watson did not exactly know he was here, but that was alright for now. Watson would flush brighter at hearing what Holmes had done than the other publisher had at Holmes’ rebuke. It had been worth being told to leave the premises to announce to all in the area just how little that man cared about his customers. Several others had followed Holmes back to the street.

“I am glad you did!” Doyle glanced at the cover page. “’A Study in Scarlet,’ eh? Beeton’s Christmas Annual is looking for a mystery this year, and I think this is a fine start. When can he meet with me?”

Pride and irritation warred within him. Beeton’s Christmas Annual was one of the most popular magazines in London. Watson’s writing deserved to be in the first pages, but did he have to publish in a _Christmas_ magazine?

“You will have to ask him,” he answered, “I can take a note back with me.”

“Certainly, certainly.” Doyle hurriedly flipped through the papers stacked on his desk, muttering all the while. “What did I do with that stack of letterhead I had earlier? I thought it was right here…”

His voice faded as he reached further into the accumulated clutter around him, and Holmes struggled to avoid comment when a faint “Aha!” finally came from beneath the desk. Doyle had never been able to keep his workspaces tidy.

“Doctor Watson, you said?” Doyle confirmed, scribbling on a heavy sheet of paper. “A fine story. Looks like a murder mystery, is it not? Those are not always as popular, but I believe this one will gain attention.” He finished the note with a flourish. “Here,” he continued, passing the folded piece of paper to Holmes. “I look forward to meeting this Doctor Watson.”

Doyle turned back to the papers after Holmes took the note, and he was already reading the first page as Holmes opened the door. A smile tried to escape at the thought of Watson’s reaction.

Watson had been acting strangely this past week, more irritable than usual and less likely to find interest in anything but scribbling at his desk, and Holmes’ attempts to lighten his mood had frequently been met with an argument. That was alright; sometimes releasing the frustration in an argument was exactly what he needed, but that did not appear to work for his friend. Each argument had gotten more genuine instead of less, and Watson had finally lost his temper the night before, angrily denying Holmes’ comment instead of brushing it off with a roll of his eyes as he usually did. Holmes had merely stared, stunned, when the angry denial had morphed into insulting diatribe before Watson stormed up the stairs.

Watson was not easily angered, and Holmes’ comment should not have sparked such a reaction. He had been trying to decide what was wrong when he spotted the crumpled missive in the sitting room doorway. The paper’s angry wrinkles had smoothed against his leg.

“Your characters are underdeveloped and lack personality,” he had read amidst an insult-littered rejection letter. “We have no need for the shallow, half-hearted work such as we see here and cannot think of a publisher that does. Perhaps some practice is in order before trying again.”

Utter fury had made the paper shake as he read the letter a second time. Holmes could not claim to care for the way Watson had fashioned the events into a novel instead of sticking with the facts of the case, but he knew the many hours of work his friend had poured into the manuscript. If the result was not what the publisher wanted, fine, but they had no _right—_

A glance at the letterhead had supplied the company’s name, and the owner of that small establishment had flushed a brilliant shade of red when Holmes read the rejection letter to the full waiting room. The belligerent, little man had ordered him out the door, and Holmes had only complied after voicing just what the man could do with his opinion. Several potential customers had followed Holmes when he left, at least two discussing the man’s “despicable” manners. A few other publishing companies would hear about this, and that was far more than Holmes had dared hope.

He had tried to meet with Doyle next, hoping to surprise Watson that night, but the other doctor had been out when Holmes called. He had been forced to make an appointment with the secretary for first thing this morning—much earlier than he would have preferred.

That hardly mattered now, though, with Watson’s acceptance letter in hand. This would serve as apology for speaking without observing first, and Watson’s reaction would make up for needing to rise over an hour earlier than normal.

The cab dropped him at the flat, and he ignored the noise of Mrs. Hudson working in the kitchen to bolt straight up the stairs, hoping Watson would be home. His friend had claimed only one or two things he needed to do today, and there was no reason to put this off. Holmes wanted to announce his surprise _now_.

The sitting room was empty, however, and silence reigned in the room above. Watson’s medical bag sat in its place by his desk. His friend was not yet back from his errands.

Holmes’ excitement drained all at once, leaving him staring at the empty room with a frown. Why could Watson not be home on the day Holmes had something to give him?

He sighed and closed himself in his room. Watson would return eventually, Holmes supposed, though the indefinite delay irritated him almost as much as that insulting rejection letter had, and the paper landed on his end table as he crossed the room. Inventorying his chemistry supplies was better than pacing in front of the fireplace while he waited.

Leaning head and shoulders into the spacious wardrobe, he searched for the box of supplies he could not store in the sitting room. Watson was always careful around his chemistry table, but the cane his friend occasionally used meant Watson needed a wider path than Holmes did. Holmes had started keeping his supplies in the bottom of his wardrobe after Watson had tripped on the box one too many times.

Noting that he needed to clear some of his own clutter—the wardrobe floor was entirely too full—he finally located the box beneath several old shirts that needed mending. Awkwardly pushing himself upright, he turned to place the box on his desk as a loud thump carried from the kitchen below, followed by a clatter, a pop, and an abrupt _whoosh._

“Doctor!”

He froze. _Doctor?!_

The box dropped the last few inches to the desktop, and he ignored the resulting crash as he bolted from the room. What had happened that Mrs. Hudson would be calling for Watson?

“Doctor!” she said again a moment later, and his worry redirected as he noticed the word was not a call for help. It was a question, asking if help was needed. Watson must have been borrowing the kitchen today, not running errands.

Watson’s voice became faintly audible as Holmes reached the ground floor, and he nearly leaped the last few steps to sprint down the hall. Mrs. Hudson stood at the other end of the room, staring at where Watson sat on the floor in front of the oven.

“Watson?”

Holmes hurried closer, crossing the room in a few long steps though Watson tried to wave off the question. The doctor’s right leg twitched as he used a nearby table to gain his feet.

“I’m fine, Holmes. I just tripped.”

Holmes stopped a few feet away but studied his friend, searching for sign of injury. The smell of burnt hair lingered in the air, mixing with the ashy smell permeating the entire room, and the hair on Watson’s arms was noticeably shorter. Whatever had happened had landed him uncomfortably close to the oven’s flame.

Holmes checked for burns as Watson’s twitching leg made him lean against the table, but Holmes could find no indication of injury. His friend looked at where Mrs. Hudson stood near the opposite wall before Holmes could ask what had happened.

“I did not intend to crisp your kitchen, Mrs. Hudson,” he apologized, “but I will clean it up. I doubt it will take long.”

She waved off his words. “I was going to clean everything later anyway. I can get it then. Did you at least get one made?”

Holmes’ focus briefly shifted. What could Watson have been trying to make that would ignite the sympathy in Mrs. Hudson’s manner?

“One what?”

Watson made no answer, spinning toward the oven, and Holmes finally noticed the array of familiar ingredients as Watson set a small cake on the table. In his surprise, he could not prevent the obvious statement.

“You were making a cream cake.” He should have asked why—Watson did not care for the light cake nearly as much as Holmes did—but the words refused to come.

Mrs. Hudson’s steps faded back to the spare bedroom as Watson nodded, sprinkling sugar over the still-hot cake instead of looking at him.

“I should not have blown up at you like that,” Watson told him, his voice subdued, “but I can’t apologize if you are avoiding me. I was going to leave it on the table.”

Watson thought— Oh.

Looking back, he could see how his actions could be misconstrued as avoiding his friend. Furious at the publisher’s comments, he had left shortly after Watson’s door had slammed shut, and the failed trip to Doyle’s office had kept him out of the flat until much later than Watson usually went to bed. Then, the early appointment with Doyle this morning had required he leave before breakfast. He had only faintly noted Watson’s movements upstairs as he hurried out the door.

“I did not know you were home,” he replied as Watson finally glanced up. “Otherwise, I would have brought it in here.”

“Brought what?”

Holmes’ excitement tried to escape, and he firmly pushed it down. It would be better to show the results than tell of his morning.

“All in good time,” he said instead. “What happened?”

Watson looked around the kitchen with a half-hearted scowl. “The flour hit a spark.”

The flour…had hit a spark? Holmes stared, trying to decide how that would leave Watson on the floor and an ashy mess spread through the kitchen. He had tried throwing a match into a cup of flour once, just to see what would happen, and the flame had merely died. Flour did not burn, had smothered the flame when he had shoved another match deeper into the pile.

“Flour is extremely flammable when suspended in air,” Watson corrected, probably seeing Holmes’ confusion. “One spark ignites the entire cloud.”

The entire _cloud?_

“So that sound I heard…”

The question trailed off as he glanced around the room, suddenly understanding why ash rested in every corner, and Watson finished the sentence, “was a ball of fire traveling through the kitchen. I am just glad cream cakes only need about a cup of flour for a normal pan, and my pans are half that size. The cloud was small. This could have been much worse.”

This could have left Watson, and even Mrs. Hudson, with significant burns and possibly set the flat on fire.

Perhaps he would have to rethink that experiment he had been planning for a while.

Watson started cleaning the kitchen, ignoring his limp to clear both the supplies he had spread over the counters and the ash that still filtered to the ground, and Holmes shook himself out of his thoughts to help. Watson was not far from needing his cane, and they still had seventeen steps to climb.

His friend refused his help on the stairs, of course, and Holmes balanced the cooling cake in one hand to keep the other near Watson’s arm. The last thing they needed was for Watson to fall down the steps again. Once this month was quite enough, but Watson made it to the sitting room without incident.

Setting the cake on the table, Holmes left Watson to hurry into his bedroom. A quick glance confirmed that his chemistry supplies were not leaking all over his desk, and he stayed in the room only long enough to grab Doyle’s note from the end table.

“What is this?” Watson asked, still leaning against a small table as he inspected the paper’s blank outside.

“That is why I left early this morning,” he replied, turning toward the cream cake. There was no need to make his excitement obvious. “Open it.”

Watson unfolded the heavy editor’s paper and scanned the first lines, and he barely prevented his mouth from falling open as surprise lit his face. He glanced between the paper and Holmes twice before he found his words.

“You found me an editor?”

Holmes barely smothered a grin. Watson’s reaction was proving far better than he had anticipated.

“Keep reading.”

Watson forced his attention back towards the paper, and his lips moved faintly as he read the rest of the note.

“He wants to _publish_ it?! Holmes!” 

Holmes’ grin grew more difficult to cover. Surprise and gratitude had changed Watson from the stressed flatmate of the last few days back to the friend Holmes knew.

He took another bite before realizing that the piece was his third, and a frown overrode the grin for a moment as he pushed the plate away. Cream cakes were rare; he should make this one last.

“You dropped the rejection letter when you left the room last night,” he replied. He kept his eyes on his plate as he felt his ears turn red, but he did not miss the understanding mix with a question in Watson’s face. “Someone once told me,” Holmes continued, answering the question though he still could not bring himself to make eye contact, “that the more rudely an opinion is stated, the less it matters.”

Mycroft had said more at the time, but Holmes pushed the memory aside when a wide smile stretched Watson’s mouth. His friend sank into his chair as his leg twitched again.

“Someone told me the same thing when I was a boy,” he answered, “but what does that make my writing?”

Excellent. Well done. Worth reading.

“Drivel,” he shot back, and Watson’s smile turned mischievous. He understood.

“I am sorry for blowing up on you,” Watson told him.

That was hardly worse than what he might have done in Watson’s place, and Holmes waved off the apology, seating himself in his own chair.

“I should not have said what I did.”

It was as close to the words as he could voice, but Watson understood that, too, relaxing back into the cushion though he never released his grip on Doyle’s note.

“He really wants to publish it?” Watson asked quietly, rereading the note for the third time.

Holmes got up for another piece of cake, using the movement to cover the smile that tried to escape. Watson poured so much of himself into his writing that he should have found a publisher long before now, and Holmes was glad his old classmate had seen the manuscript’s potential as well. Holmes had not cared for Doyle in university, but that history had proven useful today. Doyle would not let his own ideas take over Watson’s work.

“He seemed rather interested,” Holmes replied around a mouthful, trying not to drop crumbs as he resumed his seat. Aside from the crumbs being a waste of good cream cake, Mrs. Hudson would have his head if he ruined the upholstery twice in one month. “Doyle can be irritatingly enthusiastic, but he is honest.”

“How do you know him?”

“We shared composition class in university,” he answered. “Doyle decided I spent too much time in the chemistry lab and tried to help me remember the papers we were supposed to write.”

Watson’s smile could not get any wider, but he glanced up from rereading the note yet again. “You? Write a paper?”

Holmes scowled at the feigned shock in Watson’s tone. “I passed the class.”

“By how much?”

Barely, but he saw no reason to announce that. Watson’s amusement declared he knew, anyway.

“The signature says, ‘Doctor Doyle,’” Watson noted instead, “but I do not recall meeting him before. Does he have a practice?”

Holmes nodded. “He never has many patients, though. Doyle is…easily distracted, you might say. He focuses more on the editing and publishing than on his practice. Rumor is that he will sell soon.”

“What genre does he prefer?”

Holmes felt a scowl try to break free, and he stood again to hide it, returning to the table to get another piece of that cake. Watson should spend the day in the kitchen more often. “He is a known spiritualist,” he admitted. “Not all his works reflect that, however, and he will not let his own ideas affect another’s work. He has always enjoyed mysteries.” He pretended to think for a moment. “Though why he wanted such a long example of uninteresting drivel, I have no idea.”

Watson tried to scowl at him. “How about _you_ write a forty-thousand-word novel, and we can compare the two?”

Holmes huffed, glad they were back to this familiar argument. This last week had been decidedly uncomfortable, with Watson prone to snapping instead of bickering.

“How am I supposed to do that when you use all the ink?”

Holmes nearly laughed aloud at Watson’s response, and the resulting _discussion_ carried them well into the night. This was _much_ better.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always greatly appreciated :)


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